The Challenge

South Bay Adult Education Consortium identified four challenge areas which include the following:

(1) Limited awareness and leveraging of resources across the consortium.(2) There is a need to improve the seamlessness of student transitions to post-secondary education and the workforce(3) There is a need to improve internal and external communication across the Consortium.(4) There is a need to continually improve student success and retention.

The Solution

To address the need, the SBAEC members identified the following as solutions to work on as a team:(1) Have regular meetings of a Data team consisting of members from each school to align and improve data collection.(2) Provide professional development to instructors and support staff focused on best practices in all program areas to support student outcomes and increase persistency.(3) Use data to guide and sustain existing student pathways in high demand sectors. Provide professional development in new CTE paths being developed(4) Continue to align all ELL courses to the NRS levels and identify end of term assessment

Outcomes

As a result of the identified areas, the SBAEC will continue to engage in the strategic planning process using an outside consultant to meet with representatives from all consortium members, community, and other organizations to look at consortium strengths and weaknesses, as well as internal and external factors that affect the services provided to the community. Together the team developed four overarching goals with objectives and timelines to measure and monitor progress. The consortium board will continue to monitor progress of goals and the entire team will meet to evaluate progress and guide ongoing planning. This strategic planning process will help guide the team in meeting the three year plan and our annual plan.

The Data

Each workgroup team has developed SMART goals through the strategic planning process with measurable progress indicators aligned to our three year plan which will be assessed in September 2019. Data meetings have been scheduled for the 2019-2020 school year. The goal of the data meetings is to support consortium members in how to run reports and analyze program area data, using state and local databases such as TOPSPro as a part of SBAEC continuous student improvement and retention efforts.